Window 98se fixes, tweaks, and cures...

[cosmicB]

A little about registry cleaners...


http://www.registry-cleaner-help.com/

[cosmicB]

Troubles with "NetVeda Firewall" in combo with "Nod32 Firewall", in my W98se PC...
This combo causes shutdown glitches, and Nod32 shuts-down NetVeda, and freezes-up PhotoPlus8 and WinWall...

If you've run into this mess.. the cure is to uninstal NetVeda.. run EasyCleaner.. run PowerDefrag's Registry Restore.. do a Regedit search & destroy for NetVeda.. uninstal Nod32.. reinstall Nod32.. install Tiny Personal Firewall from floppy, and set the prefs.. run PowerDefrag's defrag.. then search the Net for a Firewall, in about a month or two, when the next new-ones come out... I still can't find a firewall that works with W98se without screwing-up the operating system... Maybe next year??.. But it looks like I'm gonna have to learn how to write softwares.. and build my own... Me thinks this here larnin' to write softwares is gonna-be a real sterrretch...

Thing is, with these download softwares.. I know this computer can't handle any kind of hacker action... This "wet-tissue" security system is like blowin' yer nose with a wet tissue...
All I've really got for my PC's security, is to boycott the buggy websites, open suspect emails only in the iMac, and try to not upset the bullies too much...

Again I must stress for you to learn to make, use, and maintain a registry backup...
Everytime you make any changes in the operating system, you need to make a new registry backup... Plus you need to flag your primary registry back up, to be used as a cure all, should your loading and unloading ever create a big mess...

It's a good thing to read everything you can find on formating-C, and reloading a clean Windows operating system... And print out a copy for reference.. Make it part of your "computer bible"...

To make your forum play a lot more pleasant, and socially functional, it's wise to write up your posts, then leave them for a couple hours... then return to them, and edit them a couple times, till the words seem to flow comfortably from word to word... Spellcheck it.. and sleep on it...
The next day, do a final edit and spellcheck, and a couple previews.. and publish it for all the world to see what you're really made of... Always remember, all what you post on the Net becomes an integral part of your life's legacy... The Internet never forgets...

If you have had enough of those nasty Web flamers.. go to "Flame Warriors" website, and checkout their ideas for learning how to respond to childish loud cruel forum bullies... but if you post there, expect a silly flame-war battle, designed to try to state of the art crush your spirit, and devour it... it's what they do best... I couldn't get through to them in the slightest.. and I sure gave it a good honest try... Going into that forum, is like picking-up an unwilling wild kitten... Anyone who has, knows exactly what I mean... It took me several weeks to heal the thousand scratches and bites to my hand...
It was like I had stuck my hand in a blender...

The key to a good post, is edit the heck out of it.. and for-sure, use Spellcheck...

In writing book and movie script, you must edit the thing at least a 100 to 150 times.. and even then it's not perfect... The publishing world, and the directors and actors, are gonna massacre it, so it reads like them, like their mummies taught them to be...

Silly one liners only serve to make the Net into a silly war-zone... Splashing folks with silly poopy childish hits does nothing to make the Internet a peaceful communications device to play in... Wait till you've got something Real to say.. then pull out all the stops.. and say it from deep with-in your Spirit and Soul... This is the only way we's uh gonna clean up the Internet wars.. is teach them to love...

The Internet was birthed exclusively to assist America to better fight its world drug and oil wars... The Internet was created by war, for war.. so it's no wonder there's a huge Internet war going on out there... If everyone do their part to make the Internet a fun decent place.. maybe we can clean it up a little..? Then one day we might not need firewalls and AVS's...
Some "pipedream", huh..?

[cosmicB]

Here's a good example of "Downloader Beware"...

I ran Nod32 AVS full scan.. It found six locked files.. one that had unknown compression... I searched the Net for the locked unknown dll file, and bumped into this:
"http://www.pcmightymax.net/cgi-bin/view.cgi/pcweb201/download.html?dllfix.net"...

So I surfed ""pc mightymax, and bumped into this mess:
"http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=pc+mightymax&btnG=Google+Search&meta="...

So I opened a few of those webpages, to discover that I'm sure not going to touch that software with a tenfootpole!..

Always always always check it out in Internet forums, Before you download something you know nothing about... If it has run others through troubles and grief, it'll be on the Net...

Type in the name of the software you are interested in.. and add, "is trouble"... and/or "is shid"... or "is bad"... or "is good"... or "is fantastic"... Read a little on it, then decide if it's for you...

This little precaution should give you some keen insight and background consumer reporting on that item... It could save you a lot of grief, like it saved me from downloading that disaster...

Do the same when a strange service repairman knocks on your door out of the blue... Always demand that he show you his ID, and company work sheet... And if you are still confused, phone his office for confirmation... Ask him for his office's foreman's phone number, then check it out in the phone book, or with the telephone system operator... If they don't match, or if the guy seems uneasy and acting strange, ask him to wait.. lock your doors, and call his office, and your neighbor, and the cops... and just sit back while all hell breaks loose...

Remember, You are your best personal security...
Nip crime in the bud, and it won't be in the position to touch nor damage you...

[cosmicB]

In five years, I haven't found a good firewall that actually protects W98se...

I asked the people who make "Nod32 AVS", which I am going to purchase as soon as I get my Visa down from being maxed out.. I asked, "What would be the best Firewall for my PC?".. They lead me to this item...

http://www.tallemu.com/Support-Compatibility.php

I'm downloading the trial of "On Line Armor" this very minute... They sure are complete with their compatibility user-info, and they claim it works with W98...

[cosmicB]

Re: My previous post about "On Line Armor"...

It's the BEST firewall I've ever tested.. but it needs a lot of RAM to run properly... It made my crappy old PC run way to slowwww, so I had to uninstal it, and it took out some of the operating system with it... Now I can't run that hard disk, till I solve the messes...
Lucky I have a drawer full of pre-loaded HD's...

If your PC has at least one-gig of RAM it probably be OK to use "On Line Armor", but I advise not to if you have less than a gig of RAM... On Line Armor is obviously made for the newer faster computers... But HotDam!.. It sure is a good firewall...

[cosmicB]

I tried every tweak I could find and figure to try to get this old PC running fast and snappy like I had it before this new systems install.. but nothing would restore the quickness...

Last option was to run a Find search content for "macromed"... And there was the culprit... a little blue circle with a script "f" in it.. two of 'em... Hp's macromedia installer... Everytime I clicked an HP printer-icon, the dern software would reinstall macromedia... I used Uninstaller to remove the two items... Now macromedia is finally out of this PC... And she's running snappy quick, just like I like it... oh sigh...

[cosmicB]

After all the above is done, the job still isn't finished...
Reboot, and run Find again, for "macromed", and delete what it finds... Then Run Find for "backup", and delete only all the old registry backups... Then run Easy Cleaner, Uninstaller, and PowerDefrag, and delete their old registry backups... Then run CMDiskCleaner's Reg Cleaner, and delete its registry backups... Then run CMDiskCleaner registry cleaner, with the search-words option entered for: macromedia, showbehind, backweb, shockwave, desktopmessenger, and I add: google, yahoo, and ebay.. I must, to keep all the things out that I don't want tying up what little RAM there is in this PC, so to keep this antique PC running as fast and smooth as I can get it...

I don't delete everything that CMDC finds.. that would cause a disaster.. I just delete the found searched word keys, and all the obsolete keys, found... Then run Regedit, and export a backup to the desktop.. and run PowerDefrag's scandisk, defrag, and backup... Then run CCleaner and Cacheman Memory Restore...

Now the PC is reasonably clean.. with three clean'n fresh registry backups...
________________________

If your PC has caught a serious virus, like "natas", which the AVS softwares can't clean-out.. and you can't get the thing to reboot.. restart, and press and hold the Ctrl key immediately after the manufacturer's splash screen shows, and hold it down till the next window shows, to start in safe-mode... Now you can't get your precious files to floppies, then do all the above, plus run Eraser, for only one pass.. babysit Eraser, or it will run three passes, which is way too much... That should clean the PC enough for you to at least get copies of your treasures before you format-C...

Before you open those floppies in the fresh system, AVS scan them to clean out the bugs in the floppies...

It's a good plan to always put your treasures to floppy every couple days if you play on the Net where there's a lot of nasty hack-attack activity.. or if you've got a nasty attacker-hacker bully on your back... And if that's the case, then purchase an old iMac, to be used to open all suspect emails, and to play in those danger zones... After-all, the Internet was originally designed to be a tool exclusively for War communications.. so essentially, you are playing in one of War's tools.. expect battles and risks... You are your best security...

[cosmicB]

If you can't start your computer, and you always only get a pop up that reads something like: "Standard Mode: Fault outside of MS-DOS Extender EC=000... Please remove any floppy disk from your drives..."

It might mean that something in your PC's tower is slightly out of its connector slot... Open the tower, and make sure everything is snug into its connector sockets and slots, especially the RAM boards...

Do not touch anything in the tower when it's switched-On...
While you're in there, make sure everything is clean inside...


Do not disconnect and connect anything to the tower when it's On, except those flat little USB connectors...

[cosmicB]

Make backups of your valued files and pix...

Do it now, while you can, when you don't need them.. and you'll have them when you do need them, when your computer messes-up...

Schedule an hour every week or two, to work on your backups... You'll be glad you did...

[cosmicB]

Something I just did, which you are definitely Not supposed to do to a PC's OS...

I made a registry backup, then ran IrfanView, and checked out everything in the computer for pix.. and CAREFULLY deleted 14.8-megs of pix, which I would never want to see on the screen... It all got saved in the trash bin...

Then I ran CCleaner, with its trash-bin cleaner clicked Off... and it deleted 7-megs... Then I ran EasyCleaner's Registry cleaner, and it deleted 33 registry items... Then I rebooted, and tested all my softwares, and everything seems to be in good working super... But I did fully expect I would have-to format-C, after doing this super foolish clean-out... The PC wouldn't shut down, so I hard shut it down, and was big time relieved that it rebooted...
Then I emptied the trash bin...

I've heard that you can really mess-up an operating system doing this... Seems I didn't hurt it in the slightest, time will tell, and the PC seems to be running just a little bit better... and it shut down properly on the second reboot...

I didn't touch Spybot's pix.. that would kill Spybot...

CAUTION: Do this only if you expect to have-to reinstall the whole system... Maybe I was just lucky... This is a game only for those who are doing every silly thing they can to learn the insides of their PC, and aren't afraid of mistakes, and are good at loading a fresh operating system...
If you figure your PC is full of bad things, and you are contemplating formatting-C, it would hurt to see if it can take this kind of torture...

Don't be doing it to someone else's computer...

Don't do this if you don't have a Windows systems CD, a fresh boot-floppy, a good running A drive, and a good running CD ROM, and of-course the CD's key-code...

I was bored, and I figured I'd try something I hadn't done before, just as a new learning experience... I was probably taking a big chance with ole W98se... I doubt you could get away with doing this on the newer versions of Windows...

Then I went into Windows system, and deleted everything I felt shouldn't be in the hard drive... It's still working good...

For the bored novice, who hasn't got at least five-years PC-troubleshooting under the belt, this is definitely a very bad-thing to do...

[cosmicB]

Pix Previews are faster, and snappy, when you have IrfanView set to recognize all forms of jpg...

[cosmicB]

If you have multiple email accounts in Yahoo or others.. and you find irritating problems in switching from one account to the other, without always getting shunted back to the account you just logged out of..

Next time you log out, listen closely to the sounds the hard drive makes immediately after clicking "sign out", and wait a couple seconds for the HD to stop making sounds.. Then click "return to yahoo mail.. and you won't be shunted back to the account you just logged out of...

It's because your PC has just a little RAM, and is old and slow...
You need to give old PC's time to fulfill commands, before hitting them with new commands... Treat it like a grumpy parrot...

[cosmicB]

A tiny bit about: moisture, cold, hot, batteries, and electronics...

When you bring a cold electronic item into a warm place, from a cold place, moisture instantly condenses on it, and inside it.. on transistors and on batteries... Electronics doesn't like to get wet... Moisture wrecks electronics as fast as fire does...

Moisture permits current to flow, thereby draining those batteries very fast...

Moisture causes shorts...

Should you switch-on an electronic device when the device is frozen below-zero, there is a good chance that the sudden surges of current can instantly destroy overly-sensitive modern transistors and components...


To prevent moisture and cold damage, in notebooks, cameras, ipods, car stereos, CD players, and electronic everythings.. warm them up a little before switching them on.. and when you are to take a cold device into a warm moist area, from a very cold area, put it in a sealed plastic bag, while in the cold, before you enter the warm, for it to warm-up slowly before switching it on... The condensation will collect only on the outer of the bag.. and you will spend a lot less time at the repair shops...

Always store absolutely dry batteries in a moisture free moisture proof atmosphere...
Never leave a battery damp, even for a few minutes...

Never expose a cold camera or cell phone, to a warm moist atmosphere, without it first being protected in a clean dry sealed plastic bag... Squish the air out of the bag...

Sure, some devices are built right, and can take the repeated torture.. but most devices aren't, and can't...

[cosmicB]

Can't get rid of those irritating Splash Screens?..


http://www.majorgeeks.com/SplashKiller_d5001.html

[cosmicB]

I ran into a big problem with a way too-small spare hard drive, of only 800 megs...

I wanted to put 1500-megs of software into this 800-meg spare hard drive...

I loaded: W98, W98se, IE6, W98se unofficial update, Additional W98se update tweaks package, Tiny Personal Firewall, Logitech marble-mouse properties, CM DiskCleaner, Easy Cleaner, WinWall, Irfanview, CCleaner, Seamonkey 1.07, PhotoPlus8, Uninstaller.. and ran out of hard drive disk-space...

I ran accessories system cleanup, deleting the W98 recovery file, (63 megs of free space)...

I made a registry backup, then ran Irfanview to scan the whole system, removing all the pix and unwanted files I could find... I ran Windows Explorer, deleting everything I figured the system could do without.. This part is tricky, because one serious mistake, and you are back at formating-C, faster'n you can say "oops"... If you don't know if you can delete it, don't delete it... Or delete it, and hope you didn't kill the operating system... Test the system after you've deleted a lot of stuff, so you can use backups to restore errors, before you delete the backups... I was taking a big chance by not making backups, because I had so little hd space to work with... I just went through the system like a charging bull in a china shop, without a care in the world.. just me havin' fun ripping apart a computer's operating system.. stripping it down as much as I could, to get all this software into a tiny space...

I ran Uninstaller's power cleaner, to delete everything I didn't want in the PC...

I ran CCleaner between processes...

Run scandisk and defgrag, advanced-sort clicked Off, to clean up the big mess, and speed it up a little...

Run Uninstaller, clicking No to "use the software's own uninstaller".. deleting all the uninstallers, and bits of software's links, helps, and peripherals, that I won't need in the PC...

Run Uninstaller's power clean, to delete all unwanted pix, and folders... Don't delete the system's empty folders...

That got the HD down to 474-megs, with 326-megs to spare... loaded with softwares that normally need 1500-megs... I stripped out a whole gig of crap...

I added HP 3 in 1 printer/scanner/copier CD.. then stripped out all the HP stuff I figured I could get away without... That part is touchie, because just one little mistake kills HP.. and that's a one-hour install...

Run Scandisk and defrag again... and ran CCleaner a lot...

Run CM DiskCleaner's registry cleaner, options set to search for: desktopmessenger, backweb, showbehind, Macromedia, Shockwave... Run the reg scan... Delete Only the "matching search words"... Then run Find for more of those search words, to delete...

Reboot.. Make a new registry backup... Delete all old registry backups...

Delete Task manager, Windows update, all the Windows pix...
I deleted all sounds, and sound softwares, and games, and even the internet wizards, and media player... It felt like I was driving a killer bulldozer through this poor ole little hard drive...


Now I have a spare 800-meg hard drive, with all the 1500-megs of softwares I like.. and 120-megs of clear hd to spare... It runs fast and snappy, but it is definitely Not protected from net-bugs, so I must Not open any strange emails, nor go into any crazy Internet bully's websites, because there isn't enough room to add a good AVS, nor a big firewall...

To save space while on the Internet, I have clicked Seamonkey tools image manager to block images on all the sites I don't want to see their hd space-eating images...
Caution, do not block Female First images, or it will kill your links in the forum...


CAUTION: This is definitely Not something to do to someone else's computer, nor to yours if you don't have a systems CD and boot floppy... Takes about seven hours...

This is a very bad-thing to do to a PC.. but I had no other option.. and I really really lucked-out.. oh yay...

_______________________


If you enjoy experimenting with your PC's operating system, and have on several occassions trashed the OS.. You really need to get yourself a spare hard drive to do your experimenting.. one that you can easily plug in and out...

In expermenting with this spare hard drive, doing things that might kill the operating sytem.. I realized that this is definitely the way to do the experimenting safely.. so the big hd doesn't get wrecked, from my learning/experimenting, and making mistakes... So I installed a little padded box to hold the hd on the outside of the tower... When I leave the building, my hd goes with me... All I need do is pull the hd from the slot, and I'm gone... so no-one is gonna mess in my hd, ever...


Imagine.. You're in your fav hd.. and you stumble upon a website that offers a free registry tweek.. calling it "The Tweek of the century"... Hey!.. who in their right mind wouldn't wanna test drive it..? You play with it in your experimental hard drive, first... Make the mistakes in the "crapper drive"... ("educational drive".. "ed-drive".. "EdyDrive"... "Ebdrive"..)

The biggest plus in making the hard drive instantly portable, is that it if you are into bad things, it's easy to dispose of, should a pack of mindless gorillas come a pounding on your doors...
You simply pull the hd out of the tower, squirt some gell accellerant in it, and drop it into the crackling fireplace... The gorillas will all go home, dragging their bums, and knawing on the frizzy ends of their own tails.. whilst thinking up bad words to apply to your name...

Seems like "Zip Drives"... is comin' pretty close to something Big..?

Looks maybe like you carry your whole hd in a shirt pocket... Or you might carry three or more zips... One for your offline computer, with your secrets... One for your Business Com PC... One for your Personal Com PC... and one for squishing your toes in the mud, and playing in the fire in the Internet's war zones...









[for "questions?".. start a new thread in the computer problem solver forum...]